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Getting Out of Debt: Paying Off the Car

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Several weeks ago, we just assumed that we had to have a car payment. When our youngest child was born, a larger car was a practical necessity because three car seats wouldn’t fit across the back of our old car. So we made a purchase and wound up with car payments.

We do love this car. It has given us minimal trouble and maximum flexibility for our family. We don’t love having the car payment or paying the almost $50 a month in interest on the loan. But as I said, we just assumed that we would have the payment until the end of the term of the loan.

We are currently taking Dave Ramsey’s Financial Freedom course, and it has opened our eyes and given us the steps we needed to be more purposeful with our money (I’m completely unbiased, we paid for the course ourselves).

With some extra hard work, a bit of sacrifice, and some extra blessings from God, we will be able to pay off the car at the end of the month, a full year and a half early! Whoo hoo!

I still can’t believe it.

So now we have a basic, although small, emergency fund in place and no car payment. Meeting these two goals is giving us the inspiration to keep going with our plans to get completely out of debt. We still have a number of obstacles to contend with and the road ahead still looks pretty long, but knowing that we can continue to gain momentum if we are committed is a great feeling.

For example, the money that would normally be budgeted for the car payment can be used now to start paying off more debt. Our next goals include paying extra on our second mortgage and putting more money aside in our emergency fund.

About Mary Ann Romans

Mary Ann Romans is a freelance writer, online content manager, wife and mother of three children. She lives in Pennsylvania in the middle of the woods but close enough to Target and Home Depot.
The author of many magazine, newspaper and online articles, Mary Ann enjoys writing about almost any subject. "Writing gives me the opportunity to both learn interesting information, and to interact with wonderful people."
Mary Ann has written more than 5,000 blogs for Families.com since she started back in December 2006.
Contact her at maromans AT verizon.net or visit her personal blog http://homeinawoods.wordpress.com